A surge of ominous premonition instantly flooded my mind.
“I… I need to go see.” I said while running toward the door, but the auntie grabbed me and stopped me.
“Hero! You can’t go!” The auntie said, “The ‘Divine Maiden’ specifically instructed that she and you cannot ascend together. Only one can leave today. Be good, if you want to go, wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll all ascend together, okay?”
“I and… the ‘Divine Maiden’ can’t leave together?” I frowned, looking at the auntie with confusion, “What exactly is going on… What exactly did elder sister tell you all?!”
“The ‘Divine Maiden’ only told us about Zhou Zhenglong’s conspiracy.”
“Zhou Zhenglong’s… conspiracy?”
“That’s right.” The auntie tore the steamed bun in her hand in half, then handed one half to me, “If the Divine Maiden hadn’t secretly told us while ‘healing’ us, we would still be kept in the dark. Turns out she had already mastered the method to escape from here. Zhou Zhenglong threatened her to hand it over, but she refused to speak no matter what, which is why she was thrown into prison.”
After speaking, she looked at me somewhat suspiciously: “How come… you don’t know about this?”
After hearing this, I swallowed: “I know… I just didn’t expect elder sister told you all.”
“Hey.” The auntie shook her head, “No one else is to blame for this, only Zhou Zhenglong himself. If the ‘Divine Maiden’ hadn’t contacted us privately, he really would have kept us in the dark for a long time.”
I paused and asked: “But why exactly do you all believe elder sister is the ‘Divine Maiden’? Just because she can heal your injuries?”
“If it was only healing injuries, what difference would that be from an ordinary ‘Fragrance Bearer’?” The auntie smiled, “Hero, you’ve been busy these past two days, so you didn’t see that just yesterday, the ‘Divine Maiden’ performed a ‘divine miracle’ for us! She waved her hand in front of us and personally restored a collapsed building!”
“What… ?” I was stunned for a moment. Although I had seen countless types of “Fragrance” here, I had never seen such a situation.
“It was truly like a ‘divine miracle’!!” The auntie excitedly gestured with her hands, “You didn’t see that collapsed building… right before our eyes it went ‘boom’ and was directly restored! Turns out the ‘Divine Maiden’ had long ago found the method of ascension from the ‘Divine Dragon’. She had already obtained divine power!!”
Only now did I finally understand where that earlier sense of discord came from. Those people were clearly going to die… yet they kept challenging Zhou Zhenglong one after another, as if they weren’t afraid of death.
“I need to find her… I feel something’s wrong…”
I pushed past the auntie and ran outside. I really couldn’t figure it out—there were too many suspicious points in all this!
How was that destroyed house restored?
Why would elder sister have this kind of divine power?
The entire office building was already very empty. The building that originally housed several thousand people now only had a sparse scattering of three to five people visible.
“Oh, Hero, where are you going?”
Several people came forward to try to catch me. I dodged them all with a few evasive moves. What was going on…?
They were blocking me?
“Quick, grab him! He’s going to ascend with us tomorrow!!”
“Tomorrow… ascend…” My mood was very uneasy. I felt like I was overlooking something important.
More and more people gathered toward me. I discovered that there were still about twenty people in the entire building.
Why were these people left behind?
I scanned their faces and vaguely realized that those left here fell into two categories: one was the people from my room, the other was those who could create food.
The uneasy premonition in my heart intensified. Before they could come downstairs and catch me, I ran while grabbing several wooden sticks. After going out the door, I immediately turned around, placed the wooden sticks on the ground to jam the revolving door, then propped up the doors on both sides. After finishing all this, I ran toward the distant procession without looking back.
But after running a few steps, I gradually discovered my legs weren’t obeying me.
They felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. I slowly stopped in place, completely unable to move… What on earth was happening?
Watching the distant crowd gradually disappear around the street corner, my heart was anxious as fire. I stretched out both hands and continuously pounded my legs, but I really couldn’t move…
“Little brother, you need to understand the logical relationship here.” A voice rang out not far from me. “Because you didn’t rest well last night, today you’re so tired you can’t walk another step.”
I turned my head in bewilderment to look. Standing there was a woman I had never seen before. She had long hair and wore all black clothes.
What made me puzzled was that drifting from her body was a rich “Fragrance” that was about to turn into a foul stench—its name was “Cause and Effect.”
“‘Cause and Effect’… who are you…?”
“I’m just a friend of Guyu’s.” The woman smiled, “Entrusted by someone, loyal to their affairs. I generally understand the situation here.”
“A friend…?” She wasn’t lying; the scent on her body was faint. “You made me unable to move…? Let me go!! I have urgent business right now!”
“I’m sorry… little brother.” After hearing this, the woman let out a slight sigh, “Precisely because I know you have urgent business is why I had no choice but to trap you here.”
“What…?”
“Your elder sister has already made her decision, and this decision is the right one.” The long-haired woman said, “If you run over there now… you’ll disrupt her decision, which is why she specifically asked me to trap you here. It won’t be too long, just one hour.”
I clenched my fists, feeling abandoned by the entire world.
“‘Cause and Effect,’ what exactly are you and elder sister going to do?” I asked. “What plan do you have?”
“I don’t have a plan; it’s all that little girl’s plan.” The long-haired woman shook her head, “I only helped her restore a building. Such a large project was indeed a bit tiring.”
“So it was you…” I blinked, “The reason for doing this? Was it to consolidate elder sister’s ruling position, to make her become the ‘Divine Maiden’?”
“No…” The long-haired woman shook her head, “Little brother, the ’cause and effect relationship’ is wrong. You think my restoring the building is the ’cause’ and her becoming the Divine Maiden is the ‘effect,’ but actually, becoming the Divine Maiden is the ’cause.'”
I was slightly stunned: “Then what kind of ‘effect’ will this ’cause’ have?”
“She wants to completely liberate you.”
The long-haired woman slowly walked to my side, reached out and patted my shoulder, then stretched out her hand to point toward the distance.
“Her purpose in becoming the ‘Divine Maiden’ is to liberate you. Right now, she is leading all the survivors of ‘Jade City’ to the ‘Divine Dragon’s’ game venue to gamble with their lives. You only need to wait one hour, and everything will be over.”